


Her Observations

by WeWillForeverBeYoung (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Awesome Molly Hooper, Canon Compliant, Character Development, Drug Abuse, Loving of Cats, Molly Hooper Appreciation, Multi, One-Sided Attraction, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Third Person, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 17:32:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7371115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/WeWillForeverBeYoung
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of the BBC's "Sherlock" as it was experienced by Molly Hooper. This story follows Molly Hooper as she meets Sherlock Holmes and becomes more involved in his adventures, as well as what her thoughts are on the issues that both she and Sherlock face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her Observations

**Author's Note:**

> ...I'll be honest. I was a little nervous about writing this. Mainly because I've never really focused on Molly Hooper that much in my fanfiction, but it was always something I wanted to do. So, I'm going to do it.  
>  I am taking a little bit of creative liberty in doing my deductions, but I think it works.  
> NOTE: I'm aware that Molly bought Toby after she met Sherlock. In this story, I moved Toby around a little. But, for the most part, I've stuck with the show, except for the parts of the story that the fans are left to fill in.   
> I hope you enjoy it.  
> My apologies for any mistakes. I don't have a beta-reader, so I have to do the editing myself, and sometimes I miss a few things.  
> Disclaimer: I do not own BBC's Sherlock.

Everything on that morning seemed to be working in her favor.

It was the one-year anniversary of her employment as a pathologist in the morgue at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. She supposed she owed her success and the longevity of her employment, as compared to her work at other morgues in various places in London, to the work environment of the hospital. The pay was decent enough for her to live quite comfortably on. The people she worked alongside were as polite as anyone who lived in that city could hope to be. The workload was seldom overwhelming, and, though she would never admit it, she enjoyed the praise she would get from her superiors for her skill with the cadavers.

She was determined to make this one-year anniversary special- in her own little ways. She had placed her favorite pink sweater and the best-fitting pair of jeans that she owned in her bathroom the night before, deciding to look as best as she possibly could without wearing anything that would make her work more difficult or would make her jeopardize the dress code of the morgue. She wore things for her own sake and to make herself feel good, after all, and what better way to put that into practice than by wearing one of one’s favorite and comfortable outfits on a day that was cause for one’s personal celebration?

On the morning of the anniversary, Molly woke up a few minutes before the alarm clock on her mobile went off, so she luckily was able to turn the bloody thing off before she had to hear its death sirens from hell ringing in her ears. Her breakfast consisted of two perfectly cooked pieces of toast and a cup of tea that was sweetened to perfection: not too much sweetness, but not too little. Her shower, albeit very brief because she was never one to dawdle in the shower, was taken with water that was just hot enough that it turned her skin a light, salmon pink without burning her and causing her to dance around the shower trying to find the shower handle in order to adjust the water temperature. She caught a glimpse of herself in her bathroom mirror as she dressed, taking note of the small smile that had formed on her lips as a result of the perfection she was experiencing. She had even wrapped her belt through the loops in her jeans on her first attempt without missing a single one.

She kissed Toby goodbye before grabbing her purse and identification badge and heading out the door, laughing at herself at the realization that everything she normally used in her morning routine was almost perfectly tailored for her, like Baby Bear’s things were for Goldilocks.

She managed to reach St. Bart’s ten minutes before her shift began, elation filling her having been given yet another opportunity to do the job that she loved. Molly whistled softly to herself as she walked into St. Bart’s, skipped down into the basement (much to the annoyance of the receptionist and the security guard who scanned her identification badge), and entered her office.

Upon entering her office, she noticed a small pot of yellow flowers next to her keyboard. Upon closer inspection of the note card attached to the pot, she discovered who they were from.

_“You’re a pleasure to work with,”_ the card read. _“Happy one-year employment anniversary. Regards, Mike Stamford.”_

Molly sighed. “I told him not to…” she trailed off. Mike Stamford was probably one her closest co-workers, given that he had taught pathology and post-mortem sciences at the medical college attached to Bart’s. He had come to her the week before and offered to help her celebrate, but she told him kindly that she would be celebrating in her own way and, while she was thankful for his offer, did not require him to do anything special. She still appreciated the flowers, and decided to head into the lab to thank him, setting her purse down first. She hoped that he would be in there when she walked in, or at least would stop by the lab at some point so she could thank him.

Mike Stamford was, in fact, in the lab, though there was someone else in the lab alongside him. The man with him was tall, his skin ghostly and pale. His beady eyes darted two and fro throughout the lab, soaking everything in, before finally landing on her. This stranger struck her as the dictionary example of the word _posh._ The suit he was wearing, which looked like it cost more than all of her clothes combined, hugged his frame tightly, almost like it was a second skin. His raven-colored curls were held tightly in place by what could only have been gobs of hair product. She wondered if his curls would bounce back into place if she obtained permission to perhaps pull on one of them. She knew that he probably wouldn’t let her, though, since he clearly cared about the appearance of his hair. A thick, navy coat and a long, blue, woolen scarf were hanging on the coatrack outside the morgue, visible through the window in the metal door that, when opened, led to the stairway which led to the back hallways of Bart’s.

It occurred to her that he was probably studying her as much as she was studying him.

“Molly!” Mike Stamford exclaimed. “Good to see you! I’d like to introduce you to my friend, Sherlock Holmes.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” she said, looking at the man standing next to Stamford and putting on a smile… that might have been a genuine smile rather than the simple, polite gesture she was trying to demonstrate.

“Please, call me Sherlock,” he said, not returning the smile but keeping his voice calm and decent. That voice… Oh, it sent a chill down her spine. Molly hoped he didn’t notice.

“Alright then, Sherlock,” she replied.

“Molly, Sherlock’s going to be working in the lab today,” Mike Stamford said. “He’s working with the Yard on a case right now, and he needs to borrow some of the equipment in the lab. I figured you would be the most obliged to letting him have a few moments with some of the equipment?”

“Um… sure,” Molly answered, a bit taken back. Was this Sherlock guy with the police? She’d worked with the Yard on many occasions, having examined some of the bodies that showed up at crime scenes frequently, but she had never heard of him before. “If he’s been given the clearance, then I don’t really have that much objection to it.”

Mike Stamford nodded. “Thank you, Molly. See, Sherlock? I told you Dr. Hooper would work with you. I’ll let you two get to work. I’ll be around in a bit.”

“Thank you for the flowers!” Molly called as Mike was leaving.

“No problem,” he replied, closing the metal door to the lab behind him and leaving her alone in the lab with Sherlock Holmes, who had already taken a seat at the microscope.

“Ah, well, if you, you know, need anything or need to know where something is just…” She stopped, realizing that he was more focused on the microscope slide that he had seemingly pulled out of thin air and was now examining. Damn, that man was quick.

“Right,” she muttered to herself. Well, she needed to work instead of striking up conversation anyway. So, she walked back into her office, found the files for the bodies she was going to have to examine today, and walked back into the lab.

As she was collecting the tools and the chemicals that she was going to need to perform the autopsies, Sherlock spoke to her.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

She stopped what she was doing and turned and looked at him. Sherlock was till peering intently into the microscope.

“I’m sorry?”

“It wasn’t your fault. You heard me the first time.”

“I don’t know what you’re- “

“Your father’s death.”

“My what?”

“Oh, do keep up. Your father’s death. You hold yourself accountable for what happened to him.”

She stared at him, completely in awe. “How can you say such a thing like that? What are you trying to do?”

“I wondered about your motives for becoming a pathologist,” Sherlock answered. “Most people who enter the field of pathology enter it doing so because a family member was also a pathologist or because they feel that pursuing this branch of science is the best way for them to contribute to society and to the medical field. In your case, a family association was most likely. Historically, the statistics for a man pursuing pathology were greater than those of a woman, I’m afraid, so your father must have been a pathologist in his lifetime.”

“Yes, well, that’s very… that’s correct. But how did you know that he was dead, and h-h-how did you know that- “

“Your eyes.”

“M-my eyes?!”

“Yes, your eyes. You show no signs of being stressed, so the dark circles under your eyes could not be from lack of sleep. Altogether, they’re not that prominent, so they could not have been natural or genetic. There must some sort of psychological stimulus, then. Sadness. Greif. Something is weighing on you emotionally, or at least, has been weighing on you emotionally. You’ve no boyfriend. You’ve secured a good job, given the flowers you mentioned to Stamford. The combination code on your badge tells me that you’ve been working here for a year as of today. You’re following in your father’s footsteps and seemed quite jovial when you walked into your office, whistling as you went. There’s nothing wrong with your flat, judging by the state of your clothes. So, it must be something with your family that’s affecting you. I’d estimate you to be in your early-thirties, so your parents are getting to the point where they are becoming senior citizens, but it isn’t likely that they’ve reached the average age of death yet, given the average age of an adult entering parenthood about thirty years ago was between the late twenties and early thirties. So, if what is troubling you is the death of a loved one, there’s a high probability that it was a parent of yours, since your gait says only child. Now, which parent was it? If they died recently enough to still affect you, then the causes could have either been an accident, a natural disaster, or health issues. There’s little probability of it being a parental divorce, since the rate of divorce among older couples is nothing compared to those of the middle-aged and younger, though it can still happen, but in your case I wouldn’t say it’s probable.”

Molly was at a loss for what to say. “How did you know it was my father who had died?”

“Ah,” he said. “Your belt.”

“…My belt?”

“It’s a men’s belt. You’ve no boyfriend or siblings. It must have been your father’s. You’re not wearing anything else that would be sold in the men’s clothing section, so you’re wearing it as a result of an emotional attachment. I went out on a bit of a limb and decided that it was more likely for your father to die of health issues than as a result of anything else, but then again, given his age, it was likely a health issue that was rooted in other causes than simply old age. You, being a medical professional yourself, would obviously put pressure on yourself for not noticing the signs of his illness and would be plagued with feelings of not doing enough to help him. Since you obviously looked up to him a great deal, given that you’re following in his footsteps in terms of career choice, you would be terribly affected by it.”

Molly was silent. Sherlock, who had looked up at Molly during his deductions, looked away and cleared his throat.

“Did I- “he paused. “Did I miss anything?”

“N-no,” Molly answered, trying to conceal the tears that he had brought to her eyes. “No, you didn’t.”

Molly quickly grabbed the plastic tray that she had been placing all of the tools and the chemicals on and set out on getting to the morgue as quickly and as carefully as she could. “If you need anything, please ask me for help,” she said in almost a whisper.

“I’m aware,” Sherlock said. “You said that already.”

But Molly didn’t hear him. She was already in the morgue, being greeted by the smell of antiseptic.  She felt like walking back in there and slapping the posh jerk. She felt like yelling at him- telling him how out of place he was- until she was red in the face. She wondered why she did not do so when she was in the lab and why she had let him get away with… whatever that just was.

After she had begun working in order to take her mind off of what had just happened, Mike Stamford came down the stairs and into the morgue.

“Hey! Just thought I’d come down to check on you two once more,” he said, before he caught sight of her. “Molly, what’s wrong?”

She hadn’t cleaned her face before walking into the morgue, so the few tears that she did allow to fall must have left salt streaks upon her cheeks. “Oh, it’s nothing.”

Mike’s face fell. “He deduced you, didn’t he?”

Molly kept her gaze upon the body on the table in front of her. “He told me about my father. I didn’t even tell him that he died, and yet he knew about it and told me about it.”

Mike sighed and nodded. “Right. I’ll go talk to him.”

…

_A few moments later._

Mike returned to the morgue with Sherlock in tow, who was looking just a little less put-together than he was when she had met him the lab.

“Um…” Sherlock said, looking at the body in front of Molly. “I realize that I may have been a bit harsh with my previous deductions, and though I was merely stating my observations and meant nothing by them, you were obviously affected by them. It was- “he glanced at Stamford- “rude of me to hurt you in such a way, especially when you were kind enough to allow me to borrow the lab equipment when many of the other pathologists would not have allowed for it. I’m sorry for whatever pain I caused you.”

Molly watched Sherlock for a moment. She honestly felt that her decision to allow Sherlock to work in her lab was the main reason Sherlock was apologizing, but then again, that gave him a reason to be sincere. If her assumption that this “deducing” happened often was correct, then she probably was not the first person he had caused to cry.

“I forgive you,” she said after a few moments of consideration.

“I won’t be needing the lab anymore today,” Sherlock said to Mike. “I’ll come into contact with you again when I need to work in the lab again. I’ve already sent the solution to the case to Lestrade.” He walked closer to the door, his long legs giving him a graceful stride, before turning back to Molly. “Good day, Dr. Hooper.” He promptly left the morgue.

“You should consider yourself lucky,” Mike said after a few moments of silent. “You’re the first person I’ve ever seen him apologize to.”

“Well, doesn’t that make me feel special!” Molly replied. If she could have her way just one more time that day, she wanted to put that confrontation out of her mind and keep Sherlock Holmes out of her lab, no matter how amazing that so-called deduction seemed after she reflected on it more. If she couldn’t have that, then she at least wanted to return to her lab with everything still in place. She didn’t know exactly what Sherlock had used in her lab other than her microscope, but she at least hoped that it would still be clean and orderly when she entered it again.

…

He was intelligent. She had to hand it to him there.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it and are interested in seeing more, please feel free to leave a kudo, a bookmark, a comment, or subscribe. If not, that's alright. I'll keep writing regardless. If you would like to give my work some criticism, or if you see a mistake, please leave em a comment telling me what it is. I'd like to hear from you. 
> 
> Take care.


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